


Tangle

by Sholio



Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Multi, Naked Cuddling, Puppy Piles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: "I got this!" Danny yells, and he's off the rooftop in a single bound before Luke can do anything about it, before Luke can shout out that maybe one of the more durable people should be jumping into that black water below the docks, full of rocks and debris and God alone knows what else.And Matt.





	Tangle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



Most of the time when they're in a fight with some enemy or other, Luke forgets that Matt is blind. It's ridiculous, on the surface; how _could_ you forget something like that, at a time like that? Yet it's in everyday life when there are small constant reminders: Matt's cane, the glasses, the studied and careful way he moves.

On the rooftops, when Matt drops the facade and just lets himself go -- when he's flipping around like an acrobat -- he's just _Matt_ : speed and grace and lithe beauty, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, the trusted partner who has Luke's back.

When Matt is _on,_ really on, there are no tells, no giveaways. He can somehow manage to keep track of a thousand variables at once, just by the little changes of sound or vibration. He's usually more aware of opponents and environmental variables than the rest of them. And so Luke doesn't even think to yell a warning -- there's a cable of some kind between the air conditioning unit and the edge of the roof, maybe left by a careless workman, maybe torn loose in a past windstorm.

But it catches Matt's ankle and his graceful flip turns into a graceless tumble off the edge of the roof. He goes down four stories into the cold black water alongside the old Staten Island shipyard.

"I got this!" Danny yells, and he's off the rooftop in a single bound before Luke can do anything about it, before Luke can shout out that maybe one of the more durable people should be jumping into that black water below the docks, full of rocks and debris and God alone knows what else.

And Matt.

Between them, Luke and Jessica hastily subdue the last of their opponents (ninjas, why is it always freaking _ninjas_ ) and run to the edge of the roof. Below them, the dark water ripples like motor oil in the lights of the bay. Nothing is moving.

Jessica gives Luke a look, and there's a whole world of resigned _Okay, whatever-the-hell_ in it. Then she's over the edge of the roof, but not in a dive like Danny; instead she ... okay, that's _parkour_ , damn it, and a dead giveaway that Jess has been spending way too much time with their ninja-ier partners. She goes down the side of the warehouse from windowframe to door molding and lands solidly on the concrete strip of what was once an old walkway around the side of the building, above the water. There's no railing; either this was before OSHA or, more likely, the old metal railing fell into the bay during a storm or was torn up for scrap.

Luke knows himself well enough to know that any attempts at parkour are just going to result in a belly-flop into the water, so he jumps. He lands on the concrete beside Jess with enough force to crack the concrete and make his feet ache.

"Show-off," Jess says.

"Stole my line, ninja girl." Then he lets himself over the side into the dark water.

It's cold as ice, and he's reminded as the water closes over him that he can still drown; it's one of the few sure ways he _can_ die. Bulletproof skin doesn't do away with the need for air. It doesn't prevent the November-cold water from sapping the heat from his body, the strength from his muscles.

But Matt, and Danny -- he needs them no less than air, no less than warmth.

And then there's a watery golden glow in front of him, and abruptly Danny's splashing to the surface, smacking into Luke, clutching at him. He's got Matt with him, and there's a quick, flailing tangle of cold wet limbs as Luke tries to figure out a way to get hold of both of them without sinking. Danny is half out of it, almost as cold and limp as Matt is.

Jessica helps haul them in, onto the concrete shore.

Danny coughs and struggles feebly in Jess's arms, trying to say something. Luke gives Matt's back a couple of hard thrusts and then turns him over, prepared to start CPR -- but Matt is breathing, he's coughing up half the bay from the look of it, but he's breathing, he's limp and cold but he's _breathing._

Luke holds him and kisses Matt's ice-cold forehead and then he reaches out an arm and pulls in Jess and Danny, spares a soft kiss for Danny's cold lips.

"T-tried to tell you," Danny says, his voice shaking with cold. "I kept us breathing with chi, and kept us both warm down there --"

"Please stop saying chi," Jessica begs, and looks up at Luke. Despite having been on shore, she's almost as sodden as the rest of them just from holding Danny; water squishes out of Danny's hoodie every time he moves. "See anywhere around here we could get warm?"

*

Luke carries Matt, who's semi-conscious, groaning and stirring weakly against his chest. Jess helps Danny with his arm slung over her shoulders as he stumbles along beside her. Whatever he did down there kept Matt from drowning, kept both of them from being a lot worse off than they by all rights should be, but it clearly wiped Danny right down to the bone, if all the Iron Fisting earlier hadn't done it.

Jess doesn't stand on ceremony at the next-door warehouse. She smashes a window in the door, reaches inside and turns something with a crack.

"Subtle," Luke says. Matt's head lolls against his shoulder. Luke curls a hand over Matt's chest and holds him close.

"If there's a silent alarm and the police come, we know a good law firm and a billionaire," Jess says flatly, and hobbles inside in her awkward approximation of a three-legged race with Danny.

She chose well, because it turns out this warehouse is still in use, and it's full of crates of household goods. Jess breaks the tops off a few crates before she finds the bedroom accessories section.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that," she tells Luke, ripping the plastic wrapping off a brand-new comforter. "Ironhand here can buy the entire warehouse and everything in it."

She lays out a ruffled pink-and-gold comforter on the concrete floor, puts Danny on it with exquisite gentleness she'd probably deny to her dying day, and then starts ripping open more packages, while Luke starts getting the clothing off their soaked and half-limp partners.

"I always wanted to wake up in the middle of you undressing me," Danny slurs as Luke strips him.

Luke quiets him with a kiss. Matt is naked now, curled into Luke for the warmth, while Luke stands up on his knees and starts shedding his wet clothing.

Jess looks down at them as she tears the wrapping off yet another comforter and drapes it over them. "Is this a sausage fest or can anyone join the party?"

"Get that body heat in here," Luke says, and he burrows inside with a cold and clammy Matt and Danny.

Jessica sighs as if she's terribly put-upon, and a moment later her lithe, muscular body is writhing under the pile of comforters into the middle of their ice-cold puppy pile. Luke hadn't realized how cold he was until feeling the heat of her skin, her sharp hipbones and soft breasts wriggling pleasantly past him so she can get herself on the outside and wrap around Matt.

Luke curls around Danny, and they all squirm around a little -- Matt is starting to move in a more coordinated and less clumsy way now, too. There are limbs everywhere, an arm across Luke's ribs, someone's legs tangled up with his.

"My ass is cold," Jessica complains, and she squirms inward, pushing the rest of them up against the side of the crate in a snarl of arms and legs and increasingly warm bodies.

Luke is aroused, he couldn't _not_ be, with all these naked people that he loves all over him. But what he feels is mostly just a vivid and desperate relief, because he has one arm around Danny and Matt's arm around him, with Matt solidly sandwiched between him and Jessica. Jessica's long muscular leg must be the one that was just thrown across the tangled-together mess of his and Matt's and Danny's legs.

Matt coughs a little and he says weakly, "Did I miss the memo for the regularly scheduled team orgy?"

"Hush up, Murdock, orgy in the morning, when everyone's had a shower," Jessica says, but from the slightly muffled sound of her voice, she's saying it into Matt's neck.

And Luke has his face pressed into Danny's damp curls; he has the light prickle of Matt's chest hair against his back, Matt's arm over his waist, and Jessica's fingers laced through his.

He can still see Matt going over the edge when he closes his eyes, and Danny following him. But all he has to do is trace the light patterns of hair across Danny's flat belly, or press his hips into Matt's thighs, curl his fingers into Jessica's warm, callused palm, to remind himself they're here and safe and alive.

In a warehouse they broke into at four in the morning, curled up in a pile of stolen bedding.

"Good thing we do know a good lawyer and a useful billionaire or two," he murmurs into Danny's hair, and Jess swipes their joined hands across his hip and mumbles into Matt's neck, "Damn straight we do."


End file.
